Brad Leith and his friends are putting the ﬁnishing touches on their ﬁnal Halloween haunted house,
which attracted more than 15,000 visitors in previous years. Scan page with Layar to see photos of
this year’s displays and from previous years.

Last frights for haunted house

POPULAR ATTRACTION CALLING IT QUITS
CHERYL ROSSI
Staff writer

T

he two families that started the Dunbar
Haunted House were still taking down their
elaborate sets in the middle of December
last year. A short time later, they started
building their disturbing displays for 2013, the ﬁnal
year for the Vancouver Halloween institution.
“We’ve basically become old farts,” said 47-year-old
teacher Brad Leith who started the attraction with
stylist, painter and ﬁlmmaker Gideon Flitt, nurse Annamaria Spanier and dentist Sakura Iwagami.

Leith can’t believe the haunted house that swelled
from 100 visitors in 2005 to more than 15,000 in
2010 lasted in deepest Dunbar as long as it did, until
it moved to a Marpole warehouse in 2011.
When Leith and friends bought their Dunbar home
near West 48th Avenue, he ﬁgured it was time to be a
responsible adult, which meant shovelling snow, planting a garden and entertaining children at Halloween.
He was disappointed with what he discovered.
“Halloween had kind of gotten cutesy,” said Leith.
“We grew up, you made your own costumes and the
point of Halloween was to scare.”
See EGYPTIAN on page 5

he complicated issue of why 29 illegal marijuana dispensaries are
allowed to operate in Vancouver has become more complicated
for residents and politicians now that three such shops set up almost side-by-side within a half-block of a community centre.
The three storefront operations are located along a strip of East Hastings within 100 feet of the Ray-Cam Community Centre, which is a hub
for neighbourhood children and has a childcare facility.
So why haven’t they been shut down?
The short answer is because the Vancouver Police Department is focused on targeting violent drug activity connected to the sale of cocaine,
heroin and methamphetamines, as a VPD report outlined last week.
In addition, as Vision Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang told the Courier
Monday, there is no city bylaw governing cannabis sales “as cannabis is
legal and not legal at the same time under federal law.”
Jang is referring to Health Canada’s rules that allow certain people to
grow marijuana and sell it to people who are legally allowed to buy it for
medicinal use. The recipient requires a prescription from a medical doctor.
“Federal law trumps city bylaws,” said Jang, acknowledging the confusion the general public has about the sale and production of marijuana. “So, it’s not a simple problem. At the end of the day, the real issue is
ensuring patients have access to their medication.”
That confusion could be eradicated next April when the federal government plans to have all marijuana cultivated for medicinal purposes
come from a government dispensary and delivered by mail.
Any attempts by the city to create a new bylaw and enforce it would
likely lead to legal battles in the courts, according to Jang. And, he added, such a bylaw would be irrelevant when the government adopts the
new rules governing medicinal marijuana.
That assessment, however, shouldn’t give the public the wrong impression that police and the city are simply allowing illegal pot dispensaries to proliferate without intervention by authorities, Jang said.
“If any dispensary is not dispensing under Health Canada guidelines,
then the city does investigate and shut down [the dispensary] and turn
it over to VPD to pursue criminal charges on the operators,” he said.
But until new legislation is adopted, Judy McGuire of the Inner City
Safety Society and member of the Ray-Cam board of directors said such
shops are hurting a neighbourhood that has its struggles with children
and teenagers. McGuire said the city should have created a bylaw years
ago to prevent pot shops operating near a community centre, childcare
facility or school. “You don’t expose kids to this,” she said. “And we
know, anecdotally, some of these shops are willing to deal with kids —
kids wander in there instead of going to basketball practice. I’ve heard
this from families and parents in the area.”
See CUSTOMERS on page 4

he provincial government is reviewing its mental health plan in response
to Mayor Gregor Robertson and Police Chief Jim Chu calling for urgent
investments to help people with severe mental
health problems in Vancouver.
But Health Minister Terry Lake said he’s worried the topic has turned political at a time when
the government, police department and City of
Vancouver should work together to ﬁnd solutions for what the mayor and chief call a crisis.
“It feels political to me and I don’t think it
should be political,” Lake told the Courier Monday. “We should be working together on this,
not kind of working against each other. I don’t
want that. I’ve never taken that approach. I’m
someone who wants to be collaborative.”
Lake’s comments come after the mayor and
chief reiterated their positions last week that the
city is in a mental health crisis, despite the health
minister’s cautious assessment of the situation
in Vancouver.
Robertson urged Lake, whose constituency

file photo Jason Lang

Within the past three years, the emergency room at St. Paul’s Hospital saw a 43 per cent
increase in patients with severe mental illness and/or addiction. Health Minister Terry
Lake says the government is reviewing its mental health plan.
ofﬁce is in Kamloops, to spend time on Vancouver streets with police ofﬁcers. The chief said his
ofﬁcers continue to respond to calls daily involving the mentally ill. “It’s difﬁcult for our ofﬁcers
on the front lines because they’re dealing with
very volatile, difﬁcult situations and many of the
people they deal with they dealt with the night
before, the week before,” Chu said.
Since January 2012, Vancouver police ofﬁcers
responded to more than 100 serious incidents
ranging from suicides to random violent attacks
against citizens. All were committed by people

with severe mental health issues.
Incidents included elderly women being
stomped in the head, multiple stabbings and assaults on children as young as three years old.
One man was eviscerated in front of a movie
theatre.
Within the past three years, the emergency
room at St. Paul’s Hospital saw a 43 per cent
increase in patients with severe mental illness
and/or addiction. Mental illness is a factor in
approximately 21 per cent of incidents handled
by VPD ofﬁcers and 25 per cent of the total time

spent on calls where a report is written.
Lake said he doesn’t want to “downplay the
signiﬁcant challenge” of the number of mental
health calls involving police. But, he said, he also
doesn’t want to amend the government’s 10year mental health plan before his staff reviews
the plan and analyzes the VPD’s latest report.
“It’s appropriate to review this whole issue
and determine if there are new strategies that
we need to employ,” he said. “I just don’t want
to jump to conclusions before we’ve done that
process. It shouldn’t take long.”
Themayorandchiefrecommended300longterm and secure mental health treatment beds
be opened in Vancouver. But Lake said more research has to be done to determine whether the
beds are needed. “To just rush out and build 300
beds without having the data behind it to know
that that’s the right thing to do, I think would be
amistake,”hesaid,notingtheprovincialgovernment spends more than $1.3 billion each year
on mental health and addiction services in B.C.
“We need to fully understand what the needs
are before we say, yes, 300 is the right number.”
Lake said he welcomes a meeting with Robertson, although neither the mayor nor any Vancouver city councillors requested time with him
during the recent Union of B.C. Municipalities’
conference in Vancouver.
City manager Penny Ballem was expected
to deliver a presentation to council Tuesday on
the mayor’s mental health and addictions task
force.
mhowell@vancourier.com
twitter.com/Howellings

he route of the Kits and Hadden
parks bike path might be “tweaked”
but it’s still going to be built, according to park board commissioner
Constance Barnes.
Barnes spoke to the Courier Monday, a
day after hundreds gathered at a “Save Kits
Beach” rally to demand that the park board
rethink the location of the planned 12-footwide paved path.
The board approved the path Oct. 7 as part
of the overall Seaside Greenway plan connecting Canada Place to Stanley Park to False
Creek and ﬁnally Jericho. It’s an extension of
the Cornwall-Point Grey bike lane.
Budgeted at $2.2 million, the path will run
from Hadden Park along Kits Beach and west
to the outdoor pool.
Some residents and sports and recreation
organizations argued the park board conducted insufﬁcient consultation. They insist
the path will interfere with other activities at
Kits Beach.
In response, the park board issued a press
release Friday Oct. 18 to say the ﬁnal route
hadn’t been determined and that the board
had only approved a preliminary route. An
external consultant team was to develop a
speciﬁc route that accounted for park uses, as
well as trees, benches and picnic areas.

photo Dan Toulgoet

Vision Vancouver park board commissioner Constance Barnes at Kits Beach where a
controversial $2.2 million bike path will be built.
The park board also promised to establish
an advisory group of park users, including
sports groups, seniors, youth and residents, to
work with park staff and the consultant in the
ﬁnal design of the route.
Barnes attended Sunday’s rally.
“I heard a lot of good suggestions. My reasoning for going was to listen to the people,”
she said, while stressing the park board is
moving forward with the separated bike and

pedestrian path and that it’s still expected to
be completed in 2014.
“It’s a matter of tweaking. There is a path
that’s laid out. I don’t see that we’re going
to make huge changes at this point. I think
what we’ll do is tweak the existing route,”
she said. “I don’t see that there’s reason to
be delaying when the money is there. We’re
looking for safety. We want to make sure
people are safe.”

Bill Hooker, a resident who took part in
the rally and helped publicize it, said he
has mixed feelings about the latest developments.
“I have a hope [for the advisory committee] and a suspicion. My hope is that it actually convenes and works effectively and
comes up with a practical result that satisﬁes
all players,” he said. “But I suspect it might be
just a diversionary tactic — it takes the heat
off and lets the park board go ahead and do
what they want to do anyway. My best result
would be that it turns out it’s unnecessary
and that there’s a revision of the plan.”
Hooker, who estimated the rally attracted
upwards of 300 people, questions how big
a “tweak” to the route might be, but said it’s
possible to make changes that would satisfy
concerns.
“One possibility is that they move the path
onto the grass outside the trees immediately
next to the sidewalk, so they’re moving closer
to Arbutus Street,” he said. “Another is to put
a path on Arbutus Street. There was some talk
about even making Arbutus, as it parallels the
park and swings around to Ogden [Avenue],
to make those one-way streets — so, it should
be one way and contain a bike lane.”
Barnes said park board staff would work on
the terms of reference for the advisory group
this week.
“This has all happened very quickly in response to the amount of concern we’ve heard.
So we need to make sure the terms of reference are clear before we start putting people
together and names together,” she said. “I
know a lot of people have emailed in that
they’d love to be on it.”
noconnor@vancourier.com
twitter.com/naoibh

Customers openly smoke behind dispensary

photo Dan Toulgoet

Marijuana dispensaries along one block of East Hastings close to the Ray-Cam Community Centre include
Weeds, the Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary and the Vancouver Seed Bank.

Continued from page 1
Jim Harrison, manager of
Weeds dispensary on the strip,
said he sells his cannabis products only to customers who are
19 or older and have been given
a prescription from a doctor.
Harrison said he has a Health
Canada licence for personal
possession of marijuana and a
grower’s licence.
Weeds opened in May, joining two neighbouring dispensaries — The Medicinal Cannabis
Dispensary and the Vancouver
Seed Bank — that have operated on the strip for at least ﬁve
years.
Harrison, a 65-year-old military veteran, doesn’t have a
business licence from the city
but has a posted document on
his wall that he obtained under
the Society Act of B.C. to operate a compassion club. During
the Courier’s visit, customers

purchased marijuana at a counter and smoked it outside the
back entrance to the shop.
“We’re part of the community
and we want to be accepted by the
community,” said Harrison, who
said he has 300 members and another 895 on a waiting list.
Harrison said his business
donates money and empty pop
cans to Ray-Cam every month.
As a public service, he added,
he “chases the hookers off the
corners” so parents and their
children aren’t exposed to prostitution.
“I tell all parents who walk by
with kids that if they’re ever in
trouble, they can knock on the
door,” he said, describing his
business as safe and providing
a service for people’s ailments
that are best treated with cannabis products.
mhowell@vancourier.com
twitter.com/Howellings

news

Egyptian necropolis,the Plague,
monster’s ball part of 2013 frights
Continued from page 1
In 2006, Leith and his housemates spent
several weeks decorating the front of their
house with scrap materials, Halloween
props, masks and costumes and at least
three live spooks. They noticed that of the
up to 600 people crowding their yard, few
were children. Instead, it was mainly visitors aged 30 to 60.
“As you get older and older it gets harder
and harder to be emotionally spontaneous,”
Leith said. “Part of being responsible is having
your emotions in check. You can’t be freaking
out and acting in distress all the time… So it’s
really fun for adults to put themselves in a position where they’ll actually scream. They’re
screaming at paint and latex… or they’re startled, something comes out, they know something’s going to come out, but they still end up
screaming.”
One of their visitors in 2006 suggested they
establish a donation box and they easily collected $3,000 for the ﬁreﬁghters Burn Fund.
Last year, they raised $63,000 for three charities. Visitors this year will tour the Terror of
History. “When we started out, we would just
do, like, werewolves, vampires, zombies and
there’d be no rhyme or reason,” Leith said.
This year’s haunted house progresses from
horriﬁc scenes in the ancient past to the future. Sets include an Egyptian necropolis, a
Greek tragedy, the Crusades, the Spanish In-

quisition, sorcery, the Plague, piracy, a monster’s ball, an asylum and the Apocalypse.
The monster’s ball has been a hit.
“There are werewolves and vampires
dressed up in regal Mozart-style clothing and
they all have masquerade masks on,” Leith
said. “They’re sitting around with glasses of
blood and chatting.”
The haunted house includes dummies mingled with live actors who play hide and seek
with nighttime visitors. Weekend daytimes
are actor-free to make the attraction more
child-friendly. Leith is proud to have organized a low-priced, community-minded event
for 10 years. He recalls more fundraising
events hosted by regular people when he was
younger, but says permits, regulations and expenses related to heightened safety concerns
make planning such affairs unwieldy now.
Leith remembers one woman thanked
them for having a place in her neighbourhood where she could “burn two hours” with
her kids for pocket change when the Haunted
House ran by donation in Dunbar.
“Now if you want to go to the Pumpkin
Patch, Aquarium, it doesn’t really matter
where you go, nothing’s free anymore, nothing’s really relatively inexpensive,” Leith said.
For more information, see dunbarhauntedhouse.com.
crossi@vancourier.com
twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi

Plus 6 more locations in the Lower Mainland
to serve you! Join us on the Internet!
webs www.fabriclandwest.com
Fabricland Sewing Club
Members Value Hotline
1-866-R-FABRIC 1-866-732-2742

A5

A6

THE VANCOUVER COURIER WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

news
Police board meetings now online
12TH &
CAMBIE
with
Mike Howell

(…Cue some upbeat music, heavy on the
saxophone…bring in big dude with public address announcer voice…)
From the Cambie Street headquarters
of the Vancouver Police Department…it’s
Tuesday afternoon live with….the Vancouver Police Board!..
(…Cue applause meter…)
Yep, it’s true — the Vancouver Police
Board is now on the air.
The ﬁrst episode was broadcast Oct.15 via
the VPD’s website.
“Welcome to all those who are watching
online,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson at the
beginning of the meeting. “We welcome the
openness and transparency. This is a civilian
board representing the citizens of Vancouver.”
That it is.
And if you’re wondering what Robertson
was doing there, he’s the chairperson of the
police board. It’s a position he inherited when
he was elected mayor in November 2008. He
leads a board of six civilians appointed by the
provincial and municipal governments.
The board is the governing body of the
police department. So it has a pretty important role when it comes to ﬁnances, policy
and complaints against ofﬁcers. It’s also responsible for hiring and, if need be, ﬁring
the chief. Anybody remember the board not

photo Dan Toulgoet

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu (l) and Mayor Gregor Robertson, who both sit on the
Vancouver Police Board, hope putting meetings online will help people better understand
what the board does.
renewing the contract of some guy named
Bruce Chambers?
If you tune in, you’ll see Police Chief Jim
Chu and his three deputy chiefs — Warren
Lemcke, Adam Palmer and Doug LePard
— in attendance to answer questions from
the board.
Speaking from experience, not many citizens attend these meetings. In fact, media

Flu Shot Clinic
Flu season stops here.
Prevent the flu this year. Book an in-store
flu shot with your PriceSmart Foods pharmacist.
Also, you may qualify to get the flu shot
for free. Ask your pharmacist for details.

usually outnumber regular folk. Maybe it’s
because board meetings are scheduled for 1
p.m., once a month on Tuesdays. Or maybe
it’s because people can’t be bothered.
Board members have long lamented the
fact that the police board is essentially the
Rodney Dangerﬁeld of city agencies — getting no respect — and want the public to
understand more about what they do.

The topics can be interesting.
Tuesday’s meeting covered racism, marijuana, troubled kids and crime statistics.
Chu also talked about his decision to join
Twitter, which he used to advertise Tuesday’s meeting.
Yes, the chief is on Twitter (@ChiefJimChu).
Sadly, the handle @BigLeagueChu is already taken but that hasn’t stopped Chu
from inﬂecting humour in his tweets.
A sample from his recent night out with a
downtown patrol team:
• Working patrol shift Friday and will tweet
calls. Last time, a guy was surprised it was me
arresting him. I told him he was special.
• Working tonight with ofﬁcers that keep
downtown safe. This is some of them at roll
call. Yep, that’s a donut box (The chief attached a pic of ofﬁcers at a table with a box
of donuts.)
• 4 Aussie tourists lit ﬁreworks on beach
in English Bay. Told this not OK, but shrimp
on barbie is OK.
• We checked 2 Lambos, white one had
an N. Drivers were wondering when the
mounted unit showed up as back-up. (The
chief was referring to Lamborghinis and he
tweeted out a photo with ofﬁcers on horseback, who happened to be in the area, behind the luxury cars.)
So there you go, faithful readers, you no
longer have to take my word for what’s going on at police board or have me inform
you what the chief is up to. Hashtag: #butifyouwantanalysiskeepreadingmystories
mhowell@vancourier.com
twitter.com/Howellings

Environmental Protection Notice

Application for a Permit Amendment under the provisions of the Environmental Management Act.
We, Park Lane River District Developments Ltd. (Wesgroup), intend to submit this amendment
application to the Director to amend Permit No. 100251, issued December 17, 2008 which authorizes
the discharge from a groundwater pump and treat facility.
The land upon which the facility is situated is located at Amended Lot 36 (see 55949L) Blocks 9, 10
and 16 to 19 District Lots 330 and 331 Plan 2593, Vancouver, British Columbia. Street address: 3450
East Kent Avenue South, Vancouver. The location of the discharge is offshore into the Fraser River,
on the Portion of the Bed of the North Arm of the Fraser River District Lot 4977 Group 1 New
Westminster District and Portion of the Bed of the North Arm of the Fraser River District Lot 3147
Group 1 New Westminster District.
The source of the before-treatment water is site groundwater containing polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAH). The type of treatment to be changed to activated carbon adsorption, with the
intention of reducing chemical inputs and the area required to treat the pumped groundwater. The
operating period for this facility will continue to be 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Under this application,
treated groundwater that is currently being discharge to the Fraser River via a drainage ditch will be
discharged directly to the Fraser River via a submerged outfall. The treatment facility removes the
harmful attributes of the site groundwater prior to the discharge.
The amendments to which this application applies are: 1) a change in the method of treatment from an
aeration lagoon and carbon adsorption system to a carbon adsorption treatment process followed by
aeration; 2) a change in the discharge location from a drainage ditch discharging along the shore of the
North Arm of the Fraser River to a submerged diffuser located in the North Arm of the Fraser River;
3) a decrease in the discharge volume from 650 m3/d to 450 m3/d; and 4) changes to the effluent permit
limits from the British Columbia Water Quality Guidelines for Freshwater Aquatic Life to the permit
limits shown in following table.
Proposed Amended
Proposed Amended
Parameter
Parameter
Permit Limit
Permit Limit
Anthracene
1 µg/L
Pyrene
0.2 µg/L
Benzo(a)anthracene
1 µg/L
Phenanthrene
3 µg/L
Benzo(a)pyrene
0.1 µg/L
Fluoranthene
2 µg/L
Chrysene
1 µg/L
Total Iron
40 mg/L
Acridine
0.5 µg/L
Turbidity
Remove
Acenaphthene
60 µg/L
Total Suspended Solids
75 mg/L
Fluorene
120 µg/L
Rainbow Trout Bioassay
96h LC50 d 100% v/v
Naphthalene
86 µg/L
Any person who may be adversely affected by this proposed amendment and wishes to provide
relevant information may, within 30 days after the last date of posting, publishing, service or display,
send written comments to the contact person noted below, with a copy to the Manager, Environmental
Protection, Ministry of Environment at the Lower Mainland Regional Office located at: 2nd Floor,
10470-152nd Street, Surrey, B.C., V3R 0Y3. Fax: (604) 584-9751. The identity of any respondents
and the contents of anything submitted in relation to this application will become part of the public
record. Dated this 8th day of October, 2013. Contact Person: Lee Nikl, Telephone No. 604-297-2016

get caught in our web…

v a n c o u r i e r. c o m

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

E7

news
Matthew Begbie pupils giveWe Day thumbs up
have fun and that anything is possible.
Tan likes the requirement for students to
earn their entrance with meaningful work.
“It makes me feel really, really proud,” the
12-year-old said.
Others wonder how Moran can ﬁt extra
activities in with the curriculum.“It is the
curriculum,” she said. “There’s no separating
this from social studies and science and language. The novels we read have to do with
this kind of work and the math we do, it is
textbook math, but it’s connected to how we
raise money and how other people live and
science is like that as well.”
Since 2007, youth involved with We Day
have raised $37 million for more than 1,000
local and global causes.

CLASS
NOTES

with
Cheryl Rossi

A

mong the estimated 20,000 students and teachers at We Day Vancouver Oct. 18 were 22 Grade 6
and 7 students from Sir Matthew
Begbie elementary in Hastings-Sunrise. True
to the event’s spirit, they’ve given 50 microloans to projects around the world over the
past ﬁve years to help alleviate poverty.
We Day is an event and a movement
of young people leading local and global
change. Participants must earn their entrance with local and global service.
Teacher M.J. Moran’s Grade 6 and 7 students have donated to B.C. Children’s Hospital, the food bank and the Downtown
Eastside. They jog in the Terry Fox Run and
raise money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation, UNICEF and micro-loans for the San
Francisco-based nonproﬁt Kiva.
The students sell blank greeting cards
with their art on the front on parent-teacher night to raise money for Kiva. Pairs of
students choose which project will receive
their $25 micro-loan. Photos of the people
connected to the projects they’ve chosen

photo Dan Toulgoet

Begbie elementary grade 7 students Mursal Amani (l-r), teacher M.J. Moran, Kaylin
Chan and Krystal Tam all attended last Friday’s annual We Day Vancouver.
and an explanation about their choice are
posted at the school.
“I like global [work] because you get to
learn about different lives and how they
live,” said 12-year-old Kaylin Chan.
“[Students] can relate to having a single
mom trying to get a job or somebody trying
to open a farm business in different places
around the world,” added Moran.
“I have learned that if we keep on doing this
we can make a difference, far more lives would
be saved and with hard work we can do any-

Are you ready
for the

COLD?

thing,” said Grade 7 student Mursal Amani.
“Awesome,” was how the students described We Day Vancouver, which included
Koﬁ Annan, former secretary-general of the
United Nations and Nobel peace laureate,
Avril Lavigne, pop star and founder and
president of the Avril Lavigne Foundation,
and the honourable Roméo Dallaire, lieutenant-general and author. The event was
held at Rogers Arena.
Krystal Tan was most taken with Martin
Luther King III, who told students to let go,

DELI
Casa Italia

FAMILY
PACK

Maple Lodge Farms

604.435.0646

www.bananagrovemarket.com

MEATS

99¢

/100g

/100g

1

$ 29

/100g

Santa Lucia

HAVARTI
CHEESE

1

$ 49

/100g

5

GREEN
CABBAGE

29

¢

/lb

U.S. Grown

GREEN
LEAF LETTUCE

99

¢

each

INSIDE
ROUND ROAST

Fresh
B.C. Grown

/lb -$12.10/kg

Canada Grade “AA” or Higher Beef

FAMILY
PACK

3

2

/lb - $8.80kg

/lb

B.C. Grown

AMBROSIA
APPLES

89

¢
/lb

/lb - $5.05kg

Fresh

Fresh

BONELESS
SKINLESS
CHICKEN BREAST

BREADED PORK
LOIN CUTLETS

2

Fresh

$ 29

$ 99

EXTRA
LEAN

/lb - $8.13kg

PORK
SPARERIBS

INSIDE ROUND
ROULADEN

FAMILY
PACK

3

$ 99

/lb - $5.49kg

/lb - $8.80kg

GROCERIES

BROCCOLI

99¢

3

$ 69

$ 49

PRODUCE

Fresh
B.C. Grown

Canada Grade “AA”
or Higher Beef

Fresh

NEW YORK
STRIPLOIN
STEAKS

$ 49

COOKED
GRANDORO
CHICKEN
BREAST
PROSCIUTTO COTTO

1

C. 604.454.7475

(at Slocan)

MANY MORE IN STORE SPECIALS
Prices Valid Oct 23 - Oct 29, 2013

$ 19

604.872.1974

2705 E. 22nd Ave.

Market & Deli

GARLIC
ROAST BEEF

SINCE 1996

Seismic safety, money for playgrounds, access to technology and playground safety
were reported to be of greatest concern to
parents at the citywide parent advisory
council meeting Oct. 17. The Vancouver
District Parent Advisory Council hosted 81
participants from more than 41 schools, an
improvement from last year’s attendance by
68 parents from 31 schools.
Having up-to-date textbooks and one for
every student in a class was also identiﬁed
as a concern.
crossi@vancourier.com
twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi

BANANA GROVE

Schneider’s

NIESSEN HEATING

CITYWIDE PAC MEETING

Cortina

Milano

EXTRA VIRGIN
OLIVE OIL

GIANT LADY
FINGERS

1349

$

3L

Emma

69¢

POTATO GNOCCHI

1

$ 25
1lb

A8

THE VANCOUVER COURIER WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

DALYE

3

SA

SATURDAY

FRIDAY

25

26

OCTOBER

OCTOBER

SUNDAY

27

OCTOBER

.-SUN.
T
A
S
.
I
R
F

®

New York
Strip Loin Steak

Pepsi
Soft
Drinks
Assorted varieties. 20 Pack. Plus deposit

Boneless. Cut from 100%
Canadian beef. Sold in a twin
package of 4 for only $20.00.

Ask at the pharmacy to learn how
you can receive your ﬂu shot!
Talk to your healthcare professional, including your Safeway Pharmacist, about having your own immunization record reviewed to determine your individual needs. Vaccines may not be suitable for everyone and do not protect all individuals against development of disease. Some vaccines may require a
prescription. Vaccines may not be available in all locations. Age restrictions may apply. Check with our pharmacist for further information.

Prices effective at all British Columbia Safeway stores Friday, Oct. 25 through Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013 only. We reserve the right to limit sales to retail quantities. Some items
may not be available at all stores. All items while stocks last. Actual items may vary slightly from illustrations. Some illustrations are serving suggestions only. Advertised
prices do not include GST. ®™ Trademarks of AIR MILES International Trading B.V. Used under license by LoyaltyOne, Inc. and Canada Safeway Limited. Extreme Specials
are prices that are so low they are limited to a one time purchase to Safeway Club Card Members within a household. Each household can purchase the limited items one
time during the effective dates. A household is deﬁned by all Safeway Club Cards that are linked by the same address and phone number. Each household can purchase the
EXTREME SPECIALS during the speciﬁed advertisement dates. For purchases over the household limits, regular pricing applies to overlimit purchases. On BUY ONE GET ONE
FREE items, both items must be purchased. Lowest priced item is then free. Online and in-store prices, discounts, and offers may differ.

arry Shapiro carefully lifted a small black cloth to
reveal a square grave marker engraved with the words
“Anne Rosen 20 — Aug. 1918.”
Shapiro was one of the approximately 75 people who
attended an unveiling ceremony Oct. 20 in the Jewish section of
Mountain View Cemetery to honour and identify 150 formerly
unmarked graves.
The project is part of the Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View
Restoration Project under the auspices of the Schara Tzedeck
Cemetery Board. Its goals over the ﬁnal two years of the effort
include publicizing the cemetery, researching and documenting the 450 burials at the site, physical restoration including the
cleaning and repair of gravestones, creating a pathway through
the site, developing tours, and installing benches, a washing station and new fencing.
The Jewish Cemetery revitalization is the brainchild of Shirley Barnett who said her appreciation of the site started as a
child when she came to visit her grandfather’s grave.
“I liked the setting and I have done a lot of projects in the Jewish community and I thought I would like to do this,” she said,
adding that after several acts of vandalism in the Jewish Cemetery, including the tipping of headstones in July 2012, it was
easier to get volunteers to help with the project.
Shapiro said he was touched by the fact incidents of vandalism led to the revitalization. He said such a reaction is a common aspect of Jewish culture by turning sadness into triumph.
“I felt personally very special unveiling them [the markers]. It’s almost like a rebirth of the death. It is something very
strange. You don’t get a chance to do that every day,” he said.
According to Barnett, discovering the names of the men
women, children, and infants, sometimes buried two or three
to a grave, took extensive research. The unmarked graves so far
have dated between 1892 and 2000, but Barnett said they are
still ﬁnding graves, including several found under hedges last
week, so the ﬁnal tally and dates aren’t known.

The wooden markers unveiled at the ceremony will remain
unless family members come forward to purchase larger headstones.
While no one can say for sure why some graves were not given
a marker originally, Barnett said reasons might include poverty,
the practice of not marking the graves of babies who died within
a week of birth, or because a family moved away or didn’t remain Jewish.
Regardless of the reason, Barnett and her volunteers believe it
is important to name and honour those who died.
Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, who ofﬁciated the ceremony,
said burials are a function of Jewish tradition. “Cemeteries are
a preservation of our historical consciousness, our legacy,” he

Isidore Levine’s grave was one of the 150 formerly
unmarked graves in the Jewish section of Mountain View
Cemetery that was recently given a gravestone.

said. “I think this project has such a beautiful character because
it embodies both of these elements: the elements of kindness
which are so prevalent in our tradition, but also these ideas of
preserving history.”
The restoration project is funded by grants from several sources including the Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board, the Heritage
Legacy Fund of B.C., the Jewish Community Foundation and
Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, as well as from contributions of family foundations and individual donors.
For more information, contact Myra Adirim at myra.mvc@
gmail.com
thuncher@shaw.ca
twitter.com/@Thuncher

he thinking in some B.C. New
Democrat circles now goes something like this: If only there was a
software package the party could
buy to win an election.
Download BeatChristy 1.0 (for Mac and
PC) from Amazon, say, and install it at headquarters. The program would analyze voter
information, format the right micro-targeted
messages and “devise a data-driven action
program,” to quote from the experts. Follow
the prompts and the program would deliver
an NDP government as smoothly as Google
delivers search results.
There’snosuchthing,butsomeNDPmembers on Monday unveiled what looks like an attempt to build something similar.
I don’t think it’s going to do the trick, but you can’t fault the enthusiasm of the
backers of the Winch Institute, which opened its online doors for business this
week. It’s going to sponsor research in “the science of voter contact and data management” by gathering like-minded statisticians and mathematicians to model
systems that pull the vote and win elections.
Andrew Mercier, a young former candidate who lost his race in May, said the
concept sprang from admiration for the data management and outreach done by
the Democratic Party in winning the U.S. 2012 presidential election.
NDP MLA Bruce Ralston talked with others about modelling that work and the
Winch Institute, named after former NDP leader Harold Winch, was hatched.
The Democratic Party’s effort has become the stuff of legend. After John Kerry’s defeat in 2008, the party made over its backshop voter analysis and get-outthe-vote operations. The Winch Institute has a vision of “serving as the analytics
department for the progressive movement” in Canada.
“Through rigorous application of the most current techniques in analytics, the
Winch Data Initiative will give the progressive movement a decisive advantage in
future elections.”
There’s a lot of emphasis on the success of the Democratic Party model. But
that discounts another key factor — Barack Obama. He had at least as much to
do with their two wins as the backshop did. And one of the big differences between the Kerry loss and Obama’s wins wasn’t just a computer-program upgrade
— they came up with a better candidate, as well.
Another point about the new analytics shop is that the NDP’s opponents are
doing exactly the same thing.
A B.C. Liberal strategist wouldn’t go into details but left the impression the Liberals will not be left behind when it comes to staying current with political data
analysis. He said the topic has a certain allure as it is viewed as a mysterious black
box that can work miracles. But it’s not that complicated. The NDP lost in May
because people didn’t like their policies, he said.
They can tinker with the mechanical works, but they were driving the wrong
car in the wrong direction, “with probably the wrong driver, as well.”
The NDP already has a similar operation established within the party. Former
campaignmanagerBrianToppdescribeditinhispost-mortemofthelossreleased
last month. He said they implemented a number of interesting new campaign
tools in 2012, “including a micro-targeting system that helped us predict, quite
accurately, which voters might tell us they supported us and would contribute
ﬁnancially to our campaign.
“This micro-targeting system was part of a larger data-management system
that allowed us to track, record and preserve substantially all of our local and central voter identiﬁcation work, for the ﬁrst time.”
But Topp concluded it didn’t work.
“It is more than a little depressing to compare the ‘marks’ we recorded in target ridings through these well-designed and impressive systems with the actual
turnout,” he wrote.
Maybe that’s an argument for the Winch Institute to step in and design a better
system. But maybe it shows there’s too much emphasis on analytic projections
that can’t be trusted.
Just So You Know: The party executive is now recommending May 25, 2014,
as the date to pick a new leader. The idea has to be approved by the provincial
council. Thirty-six of the 133 council members are on the executive, so the vote
will indicate how restive the party is when it comes to taking direction.
lleyne@timescolonist.com
twitter.com/LeyneLes

LES
LEYNE

ADVERTISING

604.738.1412
CLASSIFIED

604.630.3300
DELIVERY

604.942.3081
EDITORIAL NEWSROOM

604.738.1411
FLYER SALES

604.738.1412

Dee Dhaliwal

Barry Link

ddhaliwal@vancourier.com

blink@vancourier.com

PUBLISHER

EDITOR

Tara Lalanne

DIRECTOR
SALES & MARKETING

tlalanne@vancourier.com

TheVancouverCourierisadivisionofLMPPublicationLimitedPartnership.
Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40025215. All material in the
Vancouver Courier is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced without permission of the publisher.
This newspaper reserves the right to reject any advertising which it considers to contain false
or misleading information or involves unfair or unethical practices. The advertiser agrees the
publisher shall not be liable for damages arising out of error in any advertisement beyond the
amount paid for such advertisement. We collect, use and disclose your personal information in
accordance with our Privacy Statement which is available at vancourier.com.

letters

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

WE
WANT YOUR OPINION
Hate it or love it? We want to know... really, we do!
Reach us by email: letters@vancourier.com

Illegal pot shops raise
taxing questions

H

ere I go again writing about marijuana. Apparently, I just can’t stop
myself.
In case you missed it, my colleague
Mike Howell wrote a story in last Friday’s paper
about the Vancouver Police Department’s laissez-faire attitude toward 29 illegal marijuana dispensaries in the city. According to the VPD, none
are licensed by Health Canada, endorsed by any
medical body or associated with any legitimate
health service provider.
I can understand the police not getting too
bothered if only half a dozen of these dispensaries
were operating in the city, but 29 (at last count) is
a whopping number. Clearly there are proﬁts to be made.
The VPD, as Howell reported, is not making these shops a priority, preferring to
focus their resources on violent drug activity. Fair enough, but surely the police have
considered that some of these “dispensaries” could be gang-owned with proﬁts used
to purchase harder drugs like heroin and cocaine or to purchase weapons. But I ﬁnd
comfort at least in the fact that the police are keeping track of how many are opening.
The VPD’s current attitude is a far cry from how it once dealt with similar shops.
Do you remember the 2004 brouhaha over the Dutch-style Da Kine café on Commercial Drive? Dozens of undercover cops, weapons drawn and clad in balaclavas,
raided the popular pot shop and arrested owner Carol Gwilt and seven employees
on charges of possessing marijuana for the purpose of trafﬁcking. Gwilt was also
charged with possessing proceeds from a crime.
Talk about overkill. Fastforward nine years and the VPD has had a seismic shift in
attitude. The police report Howell cited in his Friday story included this statement:
“criminal enforcement could be very damaging to employees of the dispensaries,
who are generally young, entry-level employees who could face criminal charges
and the possible impact that would have on other future employment or their ability
to travel.”
Sensible words. But I’m not really bothered that these places are operating — as
long as they’re being good neighbours, are ﬁling tax returns, and deducting CPP,
EI and income tax from their employees paycheques like my employer does on my
mine? Forget the police. It’s the tax man I’d be worried about. If these businesses
are allowed to operate, as the VPD and city are allowing them to, I hope the CRA is
paying close attention to these illegal businesses to ensure they are complying with
the federal laws requiring them to ﬁle income tax returns. But apparently it’s a very
hazy area at the moment.
But back to the city’s involvement. What I ﬁnd odd is why the city can’t answer
a simple question as to whether these shops obtained a business license in order
to operate. Instead of replying to Howell’s straightforward question he asked last
week, the city emailed a prepared statement about these dispensaries being a “larger Health Canada issue” with “a lack of clarity around the regulations.”
We all know that massage parlours pay the city to obtain a business license to operate so what was with the city’s fecklessness in answering Howell’s question on pot
dispensaries?
According to Howell’s story on page 1 in today’s issue, a pot shop on East Hastings
called Weeds doesn’t have a business licence and has never been visited by a city inspector. Heck, the owner has a sandwich board outside advertising marijuana for $5
a gram. If the police and city are going to allow these shops to operate as if pot were
legal, then they should be required to follow the same rules and regulations as every
other business in town. Or are they just letting rules slide until April 1 when Health
Canada introduces its new policies on medical marijuana? Whatever the reason, the
city is ragging the puck on answering certain questions.
At the moment, it appears some illegal pot dispensaries are given a free pass while
legal businesses must jump through hoops to comply with stringent city regulations,
especially concerning window fronts. Take for example the storefronts of WestCoast
Medcann at 2931 Cambie St. or Medpotnow at 4170 Fraser St. (See photos online.)
Frosted pane windows cover more than half the windowfronts of these dispensaries
making it impossible to see activity inside. Why is that allowed when a friend who
recently opened a small café/eatery on the West Side was told in no uncertain terms
that she couldn’t put anything on the windows that would obscure the view inside?
I’m all for the clear window policy as per C1-C2 zoning regulations given it’s about
creating a friendly street atmosphere. I’d just like to see the rule applied fairly. The
city says it will investigate — but only if it gets a complaint. So dear citizens, call 311
if you question any business in your neighbourhood commercial zone whose windows are covered preventing you from seeing inside. But I surmise the city is fully
aware of the pot shops’ window coverings. There are 29 of them after all.
Fhughes@vancourier.com
Twitter.com/HughesFiona

FIONA
HUGHES

BARRIERS A
COST-EFFECTIVE
COMPROMISE

To the editor:
Re: “Kits Beach bike path a
done deal,” Oct. 16.
The park board would be
wise to reconsider its “done
deal” approach to the separated paved bike path through
the picnic area at Kits beach.
Even if only two tables need to
be moved, the public reaction
is loud and clear on the matter
and in stark contrast to the
“solid process” staff undertook
when they spoke to a small
number of beach goers.
I’m sure many will write
letters screaming about the
lack of public consultation,
cost, poor design and removal
of green space. All are valid
arguments. So today I offer a
reasonable compromise that
should satisfy nearly everyone:
install barriers on the existing shared path like at Third
Beach. Require bike riders to
dismount and skateboarders/
in-line skaters to slow down to
a walking pace. I frequent Third
Beach a lot in the summer. It’s
busy, but everyone abides by
the direction and gets along.
Barriers offer a cost effective
measure that achieves the park
board’s stated safety goals. And
if it doesn’t work, in two years,
the next park board — whatever that looks like — can
reconsider a separated path.
Trevor Boudreau,
Vancouver

ASSISTANCE, NOT
PUNISHMENT, BEST
FOR TEENAGE POT
USERS
To the editor:

Re: “It’s time to really talk
about pot, say educators,” Oct. 16.
I appreciated reading Fiona
Hughes’ column. As a drug
policy reform researcher and
the director of Educators for
Sensible Drug Policy along
with Dr. Rodney Skager, we
have proposed fundamental
changes in drug prevention
education for the past decade
in Canada and the U.S.
First and foremost most
drug education should be
moved up into secondary
schools.
Currently there is very little
drug education for teenagers and what there is merely
repeats earlier messages that
often are no longer credible to high school students.
Continued widespread use
by teenagers of alcohol and
other drugs suggests that
“inoculating” most children
against experimentation and
use later on as teenagers has
failed.
Our public schools whenever possible under the law
should emphasize assistance
rather than punishment. Effective assistance strategies
will reduce negative statistics
on low achievement, poor attendance and dropping out of
school.

A11

Educators for Sensible
Drug Policy (EFSDP) and our
respected consultants have
found:
1. Substance use remains
common among high school
students.
2. The goal of inoculating
children against later alcohol
and drug experimentation has
been unrealistic.
3. School punishment
policies have not deterred
widespread use of alcohol
and other drugs among high
school students .
4. Youth has a voice and it
deserves to be heard.
5. Drug education for
teenagers must be genuinely
interactive.
6. Student assistance offers
an appropriate structure
Examples of these ﬁndings
are readily available through
EFSDP. Student assistance
programs have proved effective and very successful.
These ﬁndings suggest that
working with young people
to facilitate self-examination
and development for self and
others is highly recommended
by educators who want to
work with health care professionals and drug educators in
our public schools.
Our goal is to provide ideas
over ideology, compassion
over coercion and rehabilitation over punishment.
Judith Renaud, Executive
Director Educators for Sensible
Drug Policy, Gibsons, B.C.

ON YOUR MIND ONLINE
COURIER STORY: “Senior wants safer East Vancouver intersection,” Oct. 16
DirtyOldTown: I drive that route every day and the comment about parked cars blocking
visibility on the crosswalk is spot on. It is absolutely impossible to see someone approaching
the crosswalk when there is a car or van parked right next to it. Sidewalk bulges might prevent
people from parking right next to the crosswalk, or possibly increased ticketing (city regulations
require parking at least six metres from the nearest edge of the closest sidewalk on an
intersecting street). Obviously, drivers have a duty to slow down when visibility at the crosswalk
is blocked, but unfortunately, relying solely on driver caution at that intersection is bound to lead
to another tragedy. It’s completely negligent for the city to allow this to continue.
COURIER STORY: “Illegal pot shops not a VPD priority,” Oct. 17
Patrick: “VPD’s focus should be on disrupting violent drug activity, saying that’s where “the
precious dollars” need to be spent. Drug dealers who sell cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine
receive greater priority than enforcement of marijuana, the report said. Except that grow-ops
producing illegal BC grown marijuana may fund the purchase of cocaine from down south.
COURIER STORY: “LBGT youth make up chunk of ‘invisible’ homeless numbers,” Oct. 11
Janet Hudgins: To parents who kick their kids out: Ignorance is a terrible thing. All it does is
destroy and it particularly destroys minds.
Follow us on Facebook: The VancouverCourierNewspaper and Twitter: @VanCourierNews

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters may be edited by the Courier for
reasons of legality, taste, brevity and
clarity. To be considered for publication,
they must be less than 300 words, signed
and include the writer’s full name (no

initials), home address, and telephone
number (neither of which will be
published), so authorship may be veriﬁed.
Send to:
1574 West Sixth Ave., Vancouver BC V6J
1R2 or email letters@vancourier.com

hockey. Tickets are $32, available in advance at ticketmaster.ca. It runs 8 p.m. at 6265 Crescent Rd. The lecture will
air on CBC Radio’s Ideas in early November.

bthulthu
Vancouver Airport Authority president and CEO Craig Richmond touches down at the Four Seasons Hotel Oct. 23 to
talk about how much Vancouver International Airport matters to the province and, presumably, why it is a bad idea
for people to ﬂy out of nearby Bellingham or Seattle at a
fraction of the cost. Find out more about Canada’s second
busiest airport, which last year saw nearly 300,000 planes
land and handled 228,000 tonnes of cargo at this two-hour
Vancouver Board of Trade event titled YVR: Connections,
scheduled to begin at 11:45 a.m. inside the Park Ballroom
at 791 W. Georgia. Ticket prices start at $79 or $158 for
non-members. More info is available at boardoftrade.com.

kuwi`nmwlg ty e\d\

bthulthu `fmlmwb`

There will be blood discussed at the Chan Centre for the
Performing Arts Oct. 23 when Blood: The Stuff of Life author Lawrence Hill gives a presentation as part of the CBC
Massey Lecture series. Hill, best known for his bestseller
The Book of Negroes, will discuss the scientiﬁc history of the
nutrient-rich red liquid that keeps us all going and, in the
same vein, explore the many different social impacts the
substance famously thicker than water has had on human
history, ranging from ideas on blood purity regarding race
and religious ramiﬁcations to the popularity of the Twilight
franchise and the always topical question of violence in

The Hastings Street Band will lead a procession of art enthusiasts from Oppenheimer Park tomorrow (Oct. 24) to nearby
Gastown as part of the sixth annual Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show starting at 5 p.m. Park-a-Palooza debuts
at Gallery Gachet (88 East Cordova St.) and showcases the
work of 35 different artists from the surrounding community,
including the special exhibit Birds That Play of birds painted
through a series of art workshops curated by Carrie Campbell. The exhibition runs until Dec. 1. For more information,
call 604-253-8830 or email oppparkartshow@gmail.com.
aﬂeming@vancourier.com

1683 Chestnut Street, Vancouver, BC V6J4M6

follow us for the most up-to-date election coverage

WOWtv and the VANCOUVER COURIER
bring you 15 minutes of local community
news, lifestyle, culture and entertainment.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden will be haunted
by Seven Tyrants Theatre beginning Oct. 24 as the troupe
performs stories about the intrepid Judge Dee, a semi-ﬁctional sleuth based on 18th century magistrate Di Renjie
— who has become a bit like China’s version of Sherlock
Holmes. Billing itself as Vancouver’s only haunted house
not suitable for children, Judge Dee’s Chinatown Haunted
House features more than 12 actors, dancers and musicians
telling a typically terrifying tale. Entry is every 10 minutes
starting at 7 until 10 p.m. Tickets are 12 bones and $10 for
students, available at the door, over the phone at 604-6623207 or online from ticketstonight.ca. More information
available at seventyrants.com.

You know it’s a thriller, thriller afternoon Oct. 26 beginning
at 4 p.m. outside the Roundhouse Community Centre (181
Roundhouse Mews) as Vancouver Improv Anywhere hosts
its annual zombie dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Hundreds of costumed dancers are expected to turn out to
recreate the dance moves from the classic 1983 music video as part of a fundraiser for the Greater Vancouver Food
Bank. Spectators and participants are asked to bring nonperishable food or cash donations. Prizes include doublepasses to Fright Night and the new Fly Over Canada ﬂight
simulator at Canada Place, improv shows at the Rio Theatre, and a prize pack from the Storm Crow Tavern. Makeup artists will be on-hand beginning at noon for last-minute
participants, and a impromptu rehearsal will be held Friday
night at the Roundhouse beginning at 7 p.m. Check out improvanywhere.com to ﬁnd out more.

We’re all familiar with the business cliché – “we try harder.” Well, never has this
been more realized than when a small business is out to serve you, the customer.

OCT 20-26

B

ecause small businesses
generally stem from
entrepreneurship – whether
it’s a micro-brewery,
a boutique, a tech start-up or a
bookkeeping service – the visionaries
behind them tend to be devoted to
their craft. After all, it’s their baby,
and they probably went through
hoops (and a lot of late nights and
start-up cash) to make their business
grow successfully.

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

business success
here and beyond
our provincial
border.”
Yamamoto said the
B.C. Government
is committed to
making B.C. the
most small-business
friendly jurisdiction
in Canada, “and
we are working
hard to ensure that small businesses
have the support they need to grow
and succeed. We have been working
closely with the Canadian Federation
of Independent Business (CFIB) to
grow our small-business sector.

It’s Small Business Week in Canada
(Oct. 20 to 26), and here in B.C.,
Minister of State for Tourism and
Small Business, Naomi Yamamoto,
recently said, “Small businesses are
the heart and soul of communities,
and this recognition week gives us
an opportunity to celebrate small

‹‹ OOH LALA! LALA’S ON THE DRIVE (AT
1748 COMMERCIAL) HAS BEEN SPOILING
SHOPPERS WITH GREAT GIFTS FOR MEN,
WOMEN, KIDS AND ESPECIALLY GIFTS FOR
WEDDINGS AND OTHER IMPORTANT OCCASIONS; LALAS.CA. SHOWN: TOKYOMILK
HANDCREAM, DIVINE!

BIA’s - a bridge
from seller to buyer
Business Improvement Areas
(BIAs) are specially funded business
districts. The City of Vancouver
helps local business groups to form
the BIAs. Once a BIA is formed, it
is managed by a volunteer board
elected by property owners and
tenants within its boundary.

“As part of Small Business Day
celebrations, CFIB is promoting Shop
Small Business Day on Oct. 25,” says
Yamamoto. I encourage [everyone]
to celebrate small businesses in their
communities by getting out and
shopping local this Friday!”

The districts are managed by nonprofit groups of property owners
and business tenants, whose goal is
to promote and improve their area.
Vancouver has 22 BIAs, which
are active in their communities,
promoting business, tourism, safety
and street beautification. Whenever
you see a street/shopping festival,
the BIA is generally the driving
force behind it.

‹‹

SMALL WONDERS! WONDERBUCKS WONDERFUL LIVING AT 1803 COMMERCIAL ST. HAS
BEEN SERVING CUSTOMERS FOR YEARS WITH
DEDICATED SERVICE AND A VAST SELECTION;
WONDERBUCKS.COM. SHOWN: CHEETAH PRINT
EASY CHAIR – WILD!

G GREEN BOTTLE
DEPOT and RECYCLING

Don’t go further than your own backyard
– Fabulous ﬁnds right here on the Drive at

Great networking to kick-off the morning with
complimentary coffee/tea thanks to TD!

9:15am - 4:30pm:

he
t
t
u
o
Check hedule
sc
r
e
k
a
e
sp
!
online
5:30pm-8:30pm:

exhibits, displays and draw prizes all day!

The SOHOSME After-Party

Includes appies, complimentary drink, social
networking and more! Limited tickets.

30% 0FF with promocode

GetyourFREEDAYPASStoday...save$50!

Pre-registeronline @ sohosme.soho.ca | Enterpromocode: courier-invite
Limited time offer includes access to the SOHO Super Meetup & Main Conference & Tradeshow.
Special 30% OFF to attend The SOHOSME After Party. Visit the website for complete event details.
SIGNATURE
PARTNERS:

PLATINUM
PARTNERS:

GOLD
PARTNERS:
Canadian Youth
Business Foundation

Correct at the time of printing.

www.sohosme.soho.ca

Twitter: @sohomarketing
Facebook: facebook.com/sohobusinessgroup

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

seniors
SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

A15

October 2013

No bones about it

OSTEOPOROSIS TREATMENTS SUPPLEMENT HEALTHY LIVING

O

steoporosis is a disease that
affects the bones, weakening
them, and making them
more likely to break. Osteoporosis is
often called the “silent thief” because
bone loss can occur without you even
knowing it or feeling anything.

However, sometimes this is not enough
to ward off the bone-weakening effects
of osteoporosis. “For some women
with osteoporosis, particularly those
at higher risk of breaking a bone,
prescription medication is needed to
build bones and keep them strong,”
said Dr. David Kendler, director of the
Prohealth Clinical Research Centre
and the Osteoporosis Program at
Providence Health Care in Vancouver.

This bone loss does not occur overnight
but over the course of several years.
Sometimes the first sign anything is
wrong is a broken bone. These breaks
can have serious side effects, including
loss of mobility and independence, as
well as shortened life spans.
Women over the age of 55 are at an
increased risk for osteoporosis, and
so are advised to incorporate healthy
lifestyle choices to build bone strength.
These include daily weight-bearing
exercise, such as brisk walking or
dancing, and consuming at least 1,200
mg of calcium and 800 to 2,000 IU of
vitamin D per day.

Calcium can be found in milk products
as well as kale, sesame seeds, tofu,
and almonds. Fish, eggs, orange juice,
and sunshine are excellent sources of
Vitamin D.

  

people taking oral bisphosphonate
treatment are estimated to discontinue
within a year, putting their bones at risk
of breaking.
“Other treatment options with different
dosing options, such as a twice-yearly
injection, are available for women aged
over 55 who are at high risk of breaking
a bone,” said Dr. Kendler.

Treatments taken less
frequently may be a
better option for
some patients.

In a recent survey of women over the
age of 55, 80 per cent knew it was
important to take the medication as
prescribed by their doctor. Nearly all of
the respondents – 90 per cent – said
that they always took their medication
at the recommended time and dose,
and only 17 per cent thought it was
okay to occasionally miss a dose
because their bones would still be
protected from breaking.

Your doctor can help you decide what
treatment option is right for you. More
information about osteoporosis is
available online at healthandbone.ca.

Despite this, studies show that half of

Information courtesy newscanada.com.

MOVIN’ ON UP (with a little less)
A FREE DOWNSIZING SEMINAR

THURSDAY, OCT 24TH
1:00 - 3:00 PM ~ CENTRE COURT

October 28, 2pm – 3pm

Entertainment followed by Bingo
and Exercises by Cavell Gardens

You’re seasoned at Spring Cleaning, but have you ever been Autumn
Downsizing? Tapestry at Arbutus Walk presents Movin’ On Up (with a
little less), an informative seminar to help you tackle your downsizing
[SR] ]VY]ab NR[S XabfWVbXVg

Corner of East Broadway @ Kingsway

30 Shops & Services • www.kingsgatemall.com

DENTURES

Guaranteed
Comfortable Fit!

Kerrisdale Denture Clinic

Our team of Denturists are BPS Denture certiﬁed to provide you
with the latest technology available. Our clinic’s associates have
experience ranging from new graduates to 30 years, so you will
beneﬁt from our knowledge and our fresh outlook.
We look forward to achieving the best possible results, while
providing the highest professional standards.

This is a free seminar open to seniors and their families.

Space is limited. Please RSVP to 604.736.1640
to ensure your spot.

Giao Le B.Sc., R.D.

Are your dentures...

604.263.7478

DiscoverTapestry.com
11077330

BPS dentures are precision dentures that use high
Over 5 years old?
standard
materials to restore form and function while
Loose, cracked or stained?
providing exceptional ﬁt and a beautiful, natural smile.
Making your mouth sore?
Our BPS dentures also come with a 5 year warranty.
Keeping you from enjoying food?
If you’ve answered YES to any of these
Please ask us about our Geneva 2000 dentures.
questions... WE CAN HELP!!!
Payment Plans + All Insurance Coverage
Call now for your Complimentary Consultation
Now accepting new patients

Amica VITALIS™
Assisted Living Suites
and Services with a
Hospitality-Plus Attitude!
When daily living activities such as bathing or
dressing take a little more energy or agility than you
once had, or if you would enjoy life a little easier
knowing that a friendly face and helping hand is
just outside your door, then it's time to consider
the VITALIS™ way of life.
Our VITALIS™ Assisted Living Suites are pleased
to offer customized care throughout each day for
assistance with activities of daily living.
Call or visit today to learn more about our
Independent Rental Retirement Living and our
VITALIS™ Assisted Living Suites & Services.
~ Open House Week ~
Wednesday, October 23rd to Tuesday, October 29th, 2013
10:00 am to 4:00 pm daily
Call today for a tour and stay for lunch
compliments of our Chef de Cuisine Robert!

Living to 120: Exposing medical myths
to health professionals
and consumers about
the rational use of
medications. His focus
is shared/informed
decision-making,
using evidence based
information and rational
therapeutic principles
by analyzing scientific

T

reports, the methods
used and the conclusions.
Johanna Trimble has
spoken extensively on her
personal experience, with
“Is your Mom on Drugs?
Ours Was and Here’s
What We Did About It.”
She is a member of the

Community Engagement
Advisory Network
(Vancouver Coastal
Health.) The primary
focus of Trimble’s work
is improving medical
prescribing practices and
care of the frail elderly.
This groundbreaking

symposium offers free
admission and parking,
and advance registration
is advised.
For further information,
visit the JSAGV website
at jsalliance.org, and to
register contact Karon
Shear at 604 732-1555.

YOU CAN’T AFFORD
NOT TO HEAR.

he Jewish Seniors
Alliance of Greater
Vancouver is
presenting its annual
Fall Symposium from 2
to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday,
Nov. 3, and this year’s
event, held at Peretz
Centre, 6184 Ash St. is
a must-attend for those
who care about seniors’
health issues.

on medical myths, and
it’s time to expose
these before it’s too
late. Featured speakers
include Dr, Margaret
McGregor; a family
physician and clinical
associate professor and
a director of community
geriatrics with the UBC
Department of Family
practice.

Live to 120: Thriving:
Is the Medical System
Failing the Elderly?
– will explore various
topics, for example…
are medications, without
regard, used as a cure
all? When are pills really

She promotes quality
of life, supporting
patients to self manage
disease effectively, and
researches the topic of
chronic disease related to
aging and health services
for the frail and elderly.

Introducing an invisible* hearing aid you
can afford

1500

$

A PAIR

Introducing AMP, the invisible hearing aid you can afford.

The tiny new
AMP ﬁts invisibly
in your ear.

You’ve never seen anything like it. AMP is designed to ﬁt snugly inside your ear canal, where no one can
see it. It’s comfortable and easily removeable, so you’re in control of you hearing. And at $1500 a pair,
you’re in control of your budget, too. If you’ve been waiting for a more affordable alternative to custom
hearing aids, it’s time to discover AMP, the hearing aid for people who aren’t ready for a hearing aid.

FREE
needed and when are
they promoted? Is
medication always the
answer or are there other
concepts of medical
care?
The JSAGV says the
public and media thrive

With over 30 years experience, you can
trust me with your hearing concerns.
Speaker Dr. James
McCormack is a
Professor, UBC
Pharmaceutical
Sciences. He has
extensive experience,
both locally and
internationally, talking

rom Nov. 10 to 17, visit
the “Nature Vancouver
Photography Exhibit” in the
Discovery Room, Visitor Centre
at VanDusen Botanical Garden.
Each year the Vancouver Natural
History Society (Nature Vancouver)
holds a nature photography
competition for its members. Some
400 excellent works are submitted
to the competition and this year
a jury has selected 57 of the best
for display at VanDusen Botanical
Garden. Open during regular
Garden hours, with free admission.
For more on what’s happening at
VanDusen next month, check out
the new and improved website at
vandusengarden.org.
Sweep! Meet new people, get
active, get healthy and get involved
at Hill Crest Centre Senior Men’s
Curling Club. Recreational curling

is starting up soon, and is open to
men aged 55-plus. (Senior women’s
league is also available.) Learn the
basics of deliver, sweeping and
scoring, and have a great deal of
fun while doing it. Games take
place Tuesdays or Thursdays from
12:45 to 3:30 pm, and the 45-game
season runs from October through
to Apr. 10. Plus, they offer free
curling instruction, before or after
games. To join, contact John Reid
at 604-224-1127 or visit vancurl.
com/leagues/senior-men.
Watch for our exciting Nov. 13
edition of Seniors. We’ll take a
visit through the newly refurbished
areas (as if it could get any more
beautiful,) and functional upgrades,
at Terraces on Seventh retirement
residence, located on West 7th, just
off Fir. All that, and more, for our
golden-agers!

Pat Fornelli, volunteer for the
Vancouver/Kerrisdale Branch
of the Canadian Osteoporosis
Society reminds us they will be
hosting an important lecture:
“Height Loss may be a Warning
Sign of a Spinal Fracture”
and Stand Tall Canada Clinic.
(Following the talk, attendees
will be offered a measurement
of their height.) It’s presented
by Jacek Kobza, MPT,
Director, Bentall Medicentre
Physiotherapy Clinic, on
Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m., at
the Seniors Centre, Kerrisdale
Community Centre, 5851 West
Boulevard. Admission is free,
and no registration required.
For more info., call 604-7314755 or 604-224-5063.

Costco Wholesale and
United Way are preventing
child poverty.
Join us.
uwlm.ca/preventpoverty

Children are poor in
this city.

Give. Volunteer. Act.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A19

GOT ARTS? 604-738-1411 | events@vancourier.com

2

11

3

OUR

PICKS
OCT. 23 - 25

For video and web content, scan page using
the Layar app.

1
2
3
4

4

Music, art, theatre, ﬁlm, dance, processions, spoken word, forums, workshops, discussions,
mixed media and history walks, oh my. THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE HEART OF THE CITY
FESTIVAL celebrates its 10th year with all the aforementioned razzmatazz and a whole lot more
Oct. 23 to Nov. 3. For info on the more than 80, mostly free, events throughout the Downtown
Eastside, go to heartofthecityfestival.com.
Three icons for the price of one. American acting icon ELIZABETH PARRISH and Canadian
dance icon MARGIE GILLIS join forces to liberate agoraphobic American literary icon Emily
Dickinson in BULLETINS FROM IMMORTALITY... FREEING EMILY DICKINSON Oct. 23 to
26 at the Cultch. For tickets and more details, go to thecultch.com.

Award-winning journalist, novelist and playwright GEORGE PACKER, wait for it, packs a
punch at the VANCOUVER WRITERS FEST. The staff writer for the New Yorker and author
of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq will be at Frederic Wood Theatre, Oct. 24, 8 p.m. to
read from and discuss his latest book THE UNWINDING: AN INNER HISTORY OF THE
NEW AMERICA. For tickets and more information on the festival, which runs until Oct. 27, go to
writersfest.bc.ca.
Enjoyably off-kilter and extremely funny standup comedian MARIA BAMFORD will be at
Vancouver FanClub, Oct. 24, along with local talents Graham Clark and Dino Archie, to help
kick off and announce the lineup for the NORTHWEST COMEDY FEST, which takes place
in February. The “exclusive early show” starts at 6:30 p.m. with the “less exclusive late show”
beginning at 9 p.m. Tickets at ticketﬂy.com. More details at northwestcomedyfest.com.

A20

THE VANCOUVER COURIER WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

BEST BUY - CORRECTION NOTICE
NEWSPAPER RETRACTION FOR THE BEST
BUY OCTOBER 18 CORPORATE FLYER

In the October 18 ﬂyer, page 8, the Samsung 60” / 65” 1080p 240Hz 3D
Slim LED TVs (Web Code: 10243916 / 10243917) were advertised with an
incorrect price. The CORRECT prices are as follows: $2399.99, save $400 for
the 60” and $2999.99, save $400 for the 65”. As well, the Dell Laptop with
Intel® Core™ i5-4200U Processor (WebCode: 10268761) advertised on
page 12 is English ONLY. Also, shipments to select stores have been delayed.
Customers may request a raincheck if this product is not available for
purchase. Please see a Product Specialist for details. We sincerely apologize
for any inconvenience this may have caused our valued customers.

TIPS,TRICKS & TOOLS TO MANAGE

ARTHRITIS
Featuring Morag Crocker, Occupational Therapist, learn about the
many tools and gadgets available to help make daily tasks easier.
Get some tips and tricks to help manage arthritis symptoms and
take the pressure off your joints.

arts&entertainment
KUDOS&
KVETCHES
TAKING TWO-WHEELED
DEMONS AND THE
HELLIONS WHO RIDE
THEM TO TASK
As opposition to the city’s plans for a paved
bike path through Kits Beach Park grows
louder and more shrill, even going so far
as to draw self-comparisons to icons of the
civil rights movement, K&K has decided
to take a closer look at this two-wheeled
demon commonly known as the bicycle.
What makes it tick? Why doesn’t it have
four wheels like a proper vehicle? Just
who are the hellions who insist on riding
these death machines across Vancouver’s
charred landscape like the spandex-wearing Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Why do
bikes want to assault defenseless children
and families as they take part in Vancouver’s oldest pastime… picnicking? How
many more basic rules of grammar, punctuation and capitalization will have to die
on comment boards, Facebook sites and
online petitions before enough is enough?
Here’s what we’ve discovered:
• Bicycles travel at alarmingly fast
speeds with no regard for the lives
of their innocent victims. Fuelled by
wind, blood and the cries of children,
they drive on roads made of pavement,

broken bones and crushed dreams.
• Even though Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Vision council were elected
twice in a row with a mandate that presumably included increasing Vancouver
bike routes, putting a bike path through
a recreation area is sheer insanity. Everyone knows recreation areas are for kicking
balls, throwing Frisbees and enjoyment by
families who can’t prevent their children
from walking in front of moving objects.
That’s it. There’s no sharing of space in a
recreation area — just good old fashioned
spreading out and hunkering down. The
way our ancestors intended.
• The mayor’s aim to make Vancouver the greenest city? More like “meanest city.” Trademark.
• We’ve already witnessed the devastation that rampant cycling has inﬂicted
upon once pristine Xanadus such as Stanley Park, English Bay, Sunset Beach, Coal
Harbour, False Creek, Jericho Beach,
Spanish Banks and Locarno Beach. Drive
down there in your SUV and you’ll see
what we’re talking about. It’s practically
like a scene from Mad Max — a lawless
wasteland ﬁlled with strangely dressed
marauders except happier, more ﬁt and
in search of the nearest Starbucks.
• You know where else a lot of bikes
are found? Communist China. You know
who plans to visit China next month?
Comrade Mayor Gregor Robertson.
• You know who didn’t ride a bike,
at least on one important day in history? Rosa Parks.

FACE OFF
Once again technology has proven to
be a cruel mistress. Earlier this month,
Rogers Wireless went down for nearly
TWO HOURS preventing voice and
text messages on what will forever be
known as “Black LOL-less Wednesday.”
Now we’ve learned that Facebook experienced a short-lived outage Monday
morning that prevented users from sending messages, posting photos, status updates and comments — particularly those
that would have expressed impotent rage
over the inability to send messages, post
photos, status updates and comments.
The real tragedy, however, is that we will
never know all the important information
we lost Monday morning until our friends
pick themselves off the ﬂoor and repost all
those unﬁltered thoughts, casual observations and never ending content to the web.
So until then, we eagerly await Dave’s Instagram photo of the tofu scramble he was
about to scarf down, Tanya’s cryptic status
update that she’s “having the worst morning ever,” Ethan’s video post of the Bangles’
“Manic Monday,” Debra’s “like” of Ethan’s
video post, Dylan’s “totally know what that’s
like LOL” comment and repost of Ethan’s
video post, Lara’s “hmmm” comment under
Dave’s tofu scramble photo, Tammy’s birthdaywishestoherone-year-olddaughterwho
probably doesn’t possess the manual dexterity to access Facebook yet and our mom’s
score on her most recent game of Candy
Crush. You’re really “crushing it,” Mom!

Highbury Interceptor
Air Management Facility

PUBLIC OPEN HOUSE
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013
6:30 - 8:00 pm
Marineview Chapel
4000 West 41st Avenue, Vancouver, BC
The Highbury Interceptor is a large sewer that conveys the majority
of Vancouver’s wastewater to the Iona Island Wastewater Treatment
Plant for treatment. During recent years, odour complaints related
to the sewer have been increasing. To address long-term odour
management needs, Metro Vancouver is planning to construct
an air management facility near the interceptor within Musqueam
Park. Construction is expected to begin in summer 2014 and be
completed in spring 2015.
You are invited to this open house to learn more about the project
and to provide feedback on the design and appearance of the
facility. Staff will be available to answer questions and receive your
feedback.

For more information, please call the Metro Vancouver Information
Centre at 604-432-6200 or email icentre@metrovancouver.org.
Project information can also be found online at
www.metrovancouver.org by searching “Highbury Interceptor
Air Management”

A new approach to bringing classical music to‘the rest of us’
STATE
OF THE
ARTS

M

with
Cheryl Rossi

ark Haney wants
to strip new Canadian music of its
pretension, so he’s
re-launching the Little Chamber
Music Series That Could on Oct.
26 with a Halloween dance party.
The double-bassist, composer and
artist in residence at the ﬁeld house
in Renfrew’s Falaise Park is re-launching the beloved chamber music series
after nearly a decade to commission
and produce new works by Canadian
composers and introduce new audiences to “new classical” music.
“When I went on a tour last fall
across Western Canada, I talked to
the audience every night about how
I felt the classical performing arts, of
which I am a practitioner, owed the
general audience an apology for three
or four decades of sort of thrusting
them away, pretensions and snobbery and elitism,” Haney said. “And it
really, really struck a chord, far more
than I thought it would.”

The event at the Roundhouse,
called Back on Track, features Montreal composer Nicole Lizée, who
ﬁrst gained attention more than a
decade ago when she developed
techniques to include a turntable in
orchestra pieces. “She was a heavy
metal drummer as a teenager and
she does a lot of stuff with electronics now,” Haney said.
As Montreal’s SaskPower, Lizée
controls the electronics and video
alongside guitarist Steve Raegele
and percussionist Ben Reimer, who
will be joined by Little Chamber
Strings, which is Haney on double
bass, Cam Wilson on violin and Marcus Takizawa on viola. “It’s a performance meant to emulate a rave,”
Haney said. “It’s constant pulsing
rhythms that shift and morph with a
visual display and it’s meant to take
the audience on a journey.”
Admission will be $10 for adults
in costume, students, artists and
seniors. It’s $20 for “adults dressed
like adults.”
“We want to produce work at
the highest level,” Haney said. “We
want to work with people at the
highest level and we want everyone to love it and have a good time.
It’s not just for a small group.”
The series is also presenting the

photo submitted

Mark Haney relaunches the Little Chamber Music Series That Could,
Oct. 26 at the Roundhouse, with a Halloween dance party.
world premiere of Lizée’s piece
“Ouijist” at a free, community
event on Halloween, at All Souls
at Mountain View Cemetery.
This summer on Friday evenings
at Falaise Park near Grandview
Highway and Boundary Road,
Haney performed what he called
“Sunset Sounds,” 90 minutes of mellow, improvised bass looping on the
front porch of the ﬁeld house just
before the sun lowered in the sky.
“And the last one, there were about

a hundred people there,” he said.
“It’s simply the reality that there are
tons of people and tons of families
living in these areas not near Commercial [Drive] or Main [Street] or
downtown, or whatever… Maybe
it’s time to start ﬁnding ways to
bring artists to these other areas.”
Haney has been composing new
music with elementary school
children for the East Side Animals
Project that will culminate with a
community performance in Feb-

ruary. The name of the work is inspired by a stone mosaic in Falaise
Park that includes animals. “We
have Sir Chubby the Bear, Cranium
the Crane,” Haney said. “These are
names by democracy, which is how
we ended up with Justin Beaver.”
Government grants Haney applied
for didn’t come through so he’s been
fundraising for the series online. “It’s
nice to know I can actually put on
East Side Animals,” he said.
Haney wrote in an August blog
post there are two Vancouvers.
“There’s the Vancouver for the
people with money (bonus points
if you’re a property developer),”
he said. “And then there’s the Vancouver for the rest of us.”
“It’s time for those of us who create and live on the ‘have-not’ side of
the fence to start creating for and
with the audience on the same side
of that line,” he suggested.
Haney, who last year premiered a
piece called “3339” that celebrates
his hero Terry Fox, hopes to premiere the piece he’s been working
on for more than a year based on
the graphic novel George Sprott by
Seth in June, “funding dependent.”
Details at littlechambermusic.com.
crossi@vancourier.com
twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi

“I’ve always been curious.”
They say we never stop learning. At Tapestry Retirement
Communities, we support that belief through limitless opportunities
to continue learning and stimulate your imagination.
Whether it’s attending interesting seminars or university
classes, discovering new hobbies, or pursuing cultural activities,
Tapestry at Wesbrook Village provides you with endless options
to quench your thirst for knowledge.
If you are curious, call us today and see for yourself.

At Little Mountain Gallery until Oct. 26
Tickets: brownpapertickets.com
ohn Steinbeck’s stage adaptation of his
classic novella Of Mice and Men is a surprising choice for young director Genevieve Fleming. The play is so early 20th
century American and so masculine it smells of
dust and sweat: nine men, one woman.
The story doesn’t exactly deal with a universal human experience: a migrant ﬁeld worker
with a dream of owning his own spread is
prevented from achieving this because he has
taken under his protection a big, strong, mentally challenged sidekick. Wherever this hulking, simple-minded guy goes, things die: mice,
puppies and who knows what else as George

J

(Sean Harris Oliver) and childlike Lennie (Sebastian Kroon) drift from farm to farm.
Probably what hooked Fleming is the beauty of George’s concern for Lennie in spite of the
endless frustration and trouble Lennie causes
him. The painful last act of kindness to which
George is driven is one of those moments in
the theatre that Tennessee Williams described
as an audience united in a “universal sob.”
WhatisuniversalisGeorgeandLennie’sdream
of owning their own farm; that desire is as strong
todayasitwasbackinCaliforniaduringtheGreat
Depression when Steinbeck sets his play.
Sean Harris Oliver, as George, is dynamic; he
moves quickly and reacts sharply with an air of
desperation. Although we know there is softness
in this character, we only see it when Lennie persuades him to tell — again and again — how life

will be on their own farm where there will be,
George promises, rabbits; Lennie’s compulsion,
which leads to the tragedy, is to stroke soft things.
Kroon’s Lennie is problematic. Kroon’s lumberingphysicalityisrightonbutthedecisiontomake
Lennie sound like a baby doesn’t feel right. Here’s
the challenge: how do you make a tall, strapping, articulate actor sound mentally deﬁcient
without reducing him to baby talk. I don’t know
and I expect Fleming and Kroon agonized over
it. What Kroon does get right is Lennie’s bursts of
happiness when he and George talk about “living
off the fat of the land” on their own farm. Kroon
lights up the whole place in those moments.
IfAlecWillowswereapieceofmachinery,you’d
oil him. His gravel-voiced, derelict take on Candy
makes him almost endearing but you’d have to
clean him up before you took him home. Jesse

Martyn is so natural as clean-cut, decent Slim that
you’d think Martyn had just ridden his horse in
from Ashcroft. Robert Olguin makes his character,
Carlson, as dangerous as the barbed wire around
the place. The trampy but lonely boss’s daughterin-law is played by Christine Quintana, who gets
some sympathy for her character by revealing the
poor young wife’s unhappiness and loneliness.
There is power in this play and in this production but it feels like a piece of early 20th century
Americana now. Its greatest contribution is the
introduction to audiences not raised on Steinbeck, to a major work by a major American writer. That’s justiﬁcation enough for Hardline Productions to mount this 1937 American classic.
—reviewed by Jo Ledingham
A longer version of this story can be found
at vancourier.com/entertainment.

AU GAM
AR CTIO BAD
FR E EX N IT O!
OM EM EM
TA PT S
X

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A23

GOT SPORTS? 604-738-1411 | mstewart@vancourier.com

ChurchillandLordByngrisetoplayforfirst
MEGAN STEWART
Staff writer

L

eague play has been so close
this year that the city senior
boys soccer championship will
be claimed by a team that came
in either fourth or sixth place.
Three points separated the top four
teams in the senior boys soccer league,
and the tables were so tight all but
one of top four was knocked out of the
playoffs.
Coaches say they can’t remember a
season with a tighter ﬁeld.
“Really, any of the ﬁve teams that go
through to the next phase of the Lower
Mainland championships could beat
one another on a given day,” said Andy
Johnston, the head coach of the Lord
Byng Grey Ghosts, who competed Tuesday in the city ﬁnal.
Kitsilano and Point Grey tied for ﬁrst
with parallel 4-1-1 records and 13 points
apiece. In their one meeting, there was
no score after 90 minutes and a shootout gave Point Grey the win, which had
repercussions at the end of the season
and put the Grey Hounds into top place

heading into the playoffs.
Hamber (4-2) followed with 12 points
and Churchill (3-2-1) was next with 10
points. Lord Byng’s losing record of 1-41 and four points didn’t stop the upstart
from surging ahead.
Lord Byng played Churchill Tuesday for the city championship. Results
weren’t known before the Courier’s print
deadline. Go to vancourier.com/sports
for results and photos.
Churchill’s route though the playoffs
started against Van Tech (1-4-1) and
the Bulldogs won 2-0. They advanced to
the semi-ﬁnals against Kitsilano and the
game was scoreless after regulation time.
Churchill won in a shootout, knocking
the 2012 defending city championship
from the ﬁnal.
In the post-season, the Lord Byng Grey
Ghosts defeated Eric Hamber 4-1 Oct. 15
thentwodayslaterupsetNo.1PointGrey
1-0 on the Grey Hounds’ own turf.
The Hamber Grifﬁns were justiﬁably
highly ranked, said Byng’s Johnston.
“Hamber had outplayed us, defeating
us 2-0 during league play. In the playoff
game at their park, again they looked
the better team in the early going but we

scored and suddenly we took back a lot of
the play.”
In an email to the Courier, Johnston
outlined the four key factors for Byng’s
late-season surge. This timely “soccer
renaissance” comes from dedication to
team play and “a commitment to play
at the level that we know we can play at
having been at the B.C. Championships
last year.”
The return of Ben Houtman was also
ﬁne timing as well as tightening up the
back end while managing to score goals
at the offensive end.
“Despite having some talented returning Grade 11s from last year, we struggled to score goals which I thought would
be one of our strengths this year as last
year’s graduating players were my stronger defensive players. However, we only
scored four goals in six regular season
games and three of those were against
Churchill,” said Johnston.”
The top ﬁve Vancouver teams advance
to the zone tournament where they meet
two Richmond teams and a Vancouver
private school team.
mstewart@vancourier.com
twitter.com/MHStewart

photo Dan Toulgoet

Magee’s Dallin Akune (in foreground) ﬁghts for position
against George Brand-McFarland of Van Tech.

Cross-country rezoning debated
MEGAN STEWART
Staff writer

A

photo Dan Toulgoet

HEAVY HITTER: David Thompson’s Kevin Chau (No. 2)

places a spike past Killarney blockers Peter Pham (No. 8)
and Jakob Stamatakis (No. 9). DT won 3-0 at Killarney Oct.
21, adding another perfect game to their season. They
have not lost a set in Vancouver league play and enter the
senior boys city championship at the top of the tables. The
tournament begins this week at Magee.

lignment changes proposed for cross-country in
Vancouver could be a backdoor attempt to change
zoning in the more politically fraught sport of
basketball, said the president of the city’s public
school sports association.
Mike Allina, who leads the Vancouver Secondary School AthleticAssociation,metwithfellowpublicschoolathleticdirectors
and said their concern is that a zoning change in one sport will
open the door for similar changes in other sports, speciﬁcally
basketball.
“We all agreed — why all this is happening is because of
basically two schools and basically basketball. We feel they
are trying to go through other sports and say, look, they’re
doing it in cross-country. Why can’t we do it in basketball?”
Rezoning was also proposed in the spring for badminton
and track and ﬁeld. Both proposals were defeated, said Allina.
He does not believe the cross-country amalgamation proposal will pass at the sport’s annual general meeting Nov. 1.
The proposal is to merge three different zones into a larger
Lower Mainland zone. Vancouver public and private schools
compete in separate leagues. They would join a zone including Richmond, Burnaby and New Westminster.
Each zone holds its own regional championship and each
sends a number of its fastest athletes reﬂective of the overall zone population. An amalgamated zone would send 30
athletes — 25 fewer individual racers than the total number
sent now by the three separate zones.
Zones are aligned differently depending on the sport, but
Allina said all berthing is based on numbers and this mandate underpins high school sports in the province.
B.C. School Sports is putting additional emphasis on
geographic representation and the cross-country commissioner, who is from a public Surrey school, is urging all Van-

couver schools to merge.
Allina said the prominence of geographical alignment arrived
with the new BCSS executive director Christine Bradstock.
He resists any pressure for the VSSAA to change its seasonal leagues and asserted that merging with private
schools is not an option because they are ultimately businesses that operate differently than public schools.
“They run under different rules than we do and we cannot accept [merging],” he said in a phone interview Monday.
“They run half-page adds recruiting athletes, they run on
their own budgets, they’re not limited by elected trustees.”
Sean Dawson, a teacher at West Point Grey Academy and
the independent zone commissioner for cross-country, said
public and private school coaches in the sport have the fundamentals in common. “That’s the beautiful thing about
running,” he said.
Whereas a football team may be dependent on more resources, cross-country requires relatively little infrastructure beyond time, transportation and leadership.
He does not think cross-country amalgamation would unduly favour independent schools but does support a larger
Lower Mainland zone because it would elevate the level of
competition and reward performance.
He could not say if issues affecting other sports were inﬂuencing the amalgamation proposal. “I think cross-country has to do what’s right for its sport,” he said.
“I’d like to see it go through because it’s good for this
sport and it’s good for the kids having bigger, more competitive meets. More coaches involved can only be a good thing
with an organization. Who knows, it could be the spark that
could bring public and private together.”
The independent cross-country ﬁnal was Tuesday at Jericho. The public ﬁnal is today at Fraserview. Visit vancourier.com/sports for results and pictures.
mstewart@vancourier.com
twitter.com/MHStewart